


Repair in Despair

by GettingMetaphysical



Series: All by Myself: A Doctorcest Storyline [10]
Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Doctorcest, Drama, Introspection, M/M, Memory Alteration, Memory Loss, Mind Manipulation, Romance, Self-cest, doctorbation - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-20
Updated: 2015-01-20
Packaged: 2018-03-08 09:22:54
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: None - Warning
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,552
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3204104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GettingMetaphysical/pseuds/GettingMetaphysical
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's been ten years, and the Ninth Doctor's oddest companion, his Eleventh self, is about to leave him for good.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Repair in Despair

**Author's Note:**

> The proper ending of my short fic "'Ven". Almost a sequel to "The Whims"; definitely the prequel to "The Pair of Aces".
> 
> * * *

  
The Eleventh Doctor stole a glance at the surveillance camera. The lens placed above the coral-themed TARDIS console was like a lizard’s bulging eye in its mechanical socket. As of now, it was perfectly still and focused on the Doctor and his companion.

The Ninth Doctor was looking at that companion’s worn leather satchel, slung over his shoulder. It was mostly for show, with few things in it’s expanded inside. His older self patted on it, stuck his hands down his pockets, fished out a little packet of sap-based chewing gum, shoved that into the bag, took out the… necessary tool.

And adjusted his Stetson.

Both of him drew a loud, deep breath. The older one did it to prepare for the younger’s questioning.

”Will I see me again?”

Eleven fiddled with the little white and silver gun. Checking.

”I can’t tell you.”

”That probably means I will, if I know me.” His earlier face looked more bitter than appropriately mystified. ”What I want to know is why it’s so secret this time. This isn’t just a night or two, not even a few months. Doctor, it’s _ten years_ , d’you hear me? Ten years, and you expect to alter your identity without damage?”

”Nine, you know I have to, I’ve been telling you since the first day–”

”I know!” Nine threw his arms out. ”I had it coming. I know.”

”It’s inevitable.” The older Doctor wrung his hands. ”I’ve repaired all the memories.”

”You needed to do that because I won’t have them all there.”

Eleven tried not to wince.

”Because you took them away.”

”Yes, true, completely true. And we can argue this for another decade, or I can get out of your hair and let myself get on with our life.”

”Look, is it…” His past unconsciously hugged his own arms. ”Would not knowing it was myself I travelled with make me think I’ve moved on? Because that’s rubbish, remembering is much better than–”

”No you _can't_ remember,” Eleven blurted. ”You have to believe that you're completely alone, you have to suffer through this time.” He waved his free hand with a short laugh. ”Sometimes you'll feel inexplicably happy and panicky at the same time, and that's because you just had a pleasant meeting with yourself but you wiped it. No faces, no time spent, no nothing."

Badly concealed frustration. Those poor, steely blue eyes. Eyes like ice. He had melted them somewhat. So much love for the universe – such a wish for life to thrive. The Lone Time Lord didn't wish himself dead to the universe at last. Not entirely. Eleven had made sure of it.

In a way, he'd taught him to be the Doctor again. But one of the honest, passionate hims? Taught by one of the deceitful, scheming hims? Eleven was afraid he'd done the wrong thing. Ten would've been better. Or Eight, dear, sweet, eventually broken Eight. Almost any other him but him.

Nine’s voice was unbearably solid. "But _why_?"

"That's the thing," Eleven said, shaking his head while his smile got more desperate. "I don't know! Not yet. Or I won't ever know, that's the... that's the thing. About all this. Oh, Nine."

The older Doctor laid his hands on his broad shoulders. He'd noticed it during the years, that he was just a bit of an inch shorter than the younger man.

"I've been trying to leave you for years. But then another memory pops up, and it's so foggy and I have to un-fog it. Everything now, it's clear as water, like a still pond. Nothing's moving! Nothing stirring," he tapped the side of his head, "in here anymore."

"Then leave," Nine spat out. But his hands, the Doctor's hands betrayed him. They snaked down to pull young-looking, young-feeling but actually older hips closer.

"Good Gallifrey, I'm trying," Eleven said with a little plastic-y laugh. "I really am, look at me, I'm wearing the right clothes and the Stetson and I have the wipe-gun. I'm as ready as I can be."

"Which is, not at all." Nine looked at him with a fondness that was much more visible when the crow’s feet had dug deeper. When he’d had real companions for a while, not himself but other beings, beautiful in their unpredictability, in the tension of exploring each other through real, proper, not-weird, not Laws of Time-breaking relationships.

Eleven was jealous of Ten. Just like Six had been before him of Three, and before that, Four of Five. Ten would love him better, Ten could fashion the meaningful stares into meaningful conversations, Ten could be so much simpler to deal with in his honesty.

He felt much more like the honest hims right now. Utterly vulnerable, and he leaned into Nine’s embrace. Nine should be the one sobbing but Eleven did it first, he cried because he had no sure way of knowing what to do. He had many years left before the fixed point of death and he had to leave most of those years to spontaneity. To the whims of the universe, not his memories.

"Doctor." A bony hand stroked his hair. "I won't remember this conversation, will I?"

"No, not much. You'll get to remember you're not supposed to."

"Good. So I don't have to dwell on it."

"Exactly."

"Will I have a name for you?"

"I don't... think so..."

Nine pulled away, holding his elder's gaze. The younger Doctor sometimes thought that if he had Four's colour, Eleven had Six's. But without the glitter. Those old eyes were more like glowing coals. Calculating.

"Not even a nickname?"

"I'm just a non-human companion."

"You can't be. What would I make of that?" Nine stroked his future cheek. "I could call you 'Ven. Sounds like 'Friend' in Earth Swedish."

"'Lover' in High Relusian," Eleven said. The real kind of smile struggled to stretch his lips.

"Sounds nice, yeah."

After a moment, the younger Doctor steered him to the seats around the console.

"If you have to leave me for real, Doctor, I'd suggest on more complete terms. If not your whole name, I'd like to have the feeling of you fresh." Like so many other times, he straddled himself on the seat.

"In my hearts,” Eleven said.

"Yeah."

"I'd like that, too."

Nine had no more words, but he smiled.

Eleven embraced him. He allowed himself the frailty between them, the heat, the lips crashing against his. Just forget, just for the moment, that he was leaving in mere minutes, that the mindlink would remain closed this time and that as far as the oldest Doctor knew, this was the last of this Nine he would ever see.

Maybe that was for the best.

 

~*~*~*~

 

And the Eleventh Doctor adjusted that silly Stetson again.

It suited the surface of him a bit too well. Said surface got shrouded in shadow from the bright sunlight outside. Inside, the Ninth Doctor stood with his arms crossed in the coral control room’s warmth and gloom. Closed, never to feel open until lifetimes later, faces later.

Eleven faces… He could really keep on running for two more faces, maybe the whole cycle…

”Are you ready?”

Familiar against his temple; a tiny, cold, metal opening of a gun. Numbers moving through the material.

The corner of the Ninth’s mouth twitched.

”Not at all.”

He waited for the click. (The pop, the rip.)

Eleven pecked him on the cheek. ”Please be safe.”

”Just shoot, ’Ven.”

His older self took two steps back to stand just in the doorway, the brim of the Stetson keeping his pale face in the dark. Nine closed his eyes, and Eleven reminded him, once more:

”Keep running, Doctor. The universe needs you.”

 _Fyuiiiiip_ , popped the gun; _whoosh_ , rippled his head.

 

Like a gust of wind…

 

…a gust of wind hit him when the TARDIS doors slammed shut. The Doctor blinked, eyes relieved of the light outside.

”Right.”

The Doctor turned and marched back to the controls. Funny, the ship was already moving away? Pre-coordinated, yes, that’s it. His pocket swung and hit his hip; he reached in, and pulled out the little gun from the top of everything he kept in there.

 _Another one to miss_ , the Doctor’s hearts heaved.

But he’d promised himself; no companions. And yet he’d given in to pleading eyes and another brilliant mind, another brave heart. Hearts? What kind of alien was Ven, again? He wasn’t human, simply not another human. There’s plenty of species similar to humans, too many to narrow down which.

No, Ven would be fine. The Doctor shouldn’t dwell on their last agreement.

_The universe needs you._

Easy for him to say.

The Doctor sighed. While the air went out of him, tears pushed out, ran down his cheeks. _Drip_ onto the control board.

”I’m gonna miss him, Old Girl.”

The ship’s engines hummed softly. Her pilot gripped a lever, ready to drag her out of the Vortex. His fingers still thought of Ven’s chest.

”Maybe I ought to check up on Earth…”

* * *

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This story archived at <http://www.whofic.com/viewstory.php?sid=55077>


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